The present invention relates to an oil pump for a transaxle, and more particularly to an oil pump cover of an oil pump for an automatic transaxle.
An automatic transaxle is commonly used as a power unit of a front engine front wheel drive vehicle or a rear engine rear wheel drive vehicle. The automatic transaxle comprises an automatic transmission and a diferential gear.
An automatic transaxle is known which comprises a counter shaft arranged in parallel to an axis of a transmission gearing having an input connected to a torque converter and an output delivering a torque to the counter shaft, and the torque delivered to the counter shaft is then delivered via a final drive to a differential gear. This arrangement is advantageous in that the differential gear can be located at the middle between a left and a right driving wheels, resulting in a reduction in a difference between the lengths of driving axles. This automatic transaxle includes an oil pump which serves as a source of pressurized oil used for activation of various gear shifting friction elements. The oil pump is driven by an engine via a pump impeller of the torque converter and thus arranged between the torque converter and the transmission gearing and the final drive pinion is disposed radially outward of the oil pump. Typical examples of the above mentioned known transaxle are an automatic transaxle of the RN4F02A type manufactured by Nissan Motor Company Limited and an automatic transaxle of the A240E type manufactured by Toyota Motor Company Limited.
An object of the present invention is to provide an oil pump which gives an arrangement wherein the distance between the axis of the final drive pinion and the axis of the oil pump is reduced, thus suppressing an increase in radial dimension of a transaxle at a portion where the final drive pinion and the oil pump are disposed.